CENTCOM's
Targets Terrorist Networks and Individual
'Extreme Actors'

A
recently established Interagency Task Force has been activated
at US Central Command to assist the command in its Irregular Warfare
activity. The task force will track and target “violent
and extreme actors” in the command’s area of operations.
“Regionally, we look at influences of extreme actors that
are malign that would provide, from within their borders, exporting
either violence or activities that would be disruptive to their
neighbors,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert H. Holmes, CentCom’s
deputy director of operations.

Targeting Terror & Support Networks

General Holmes added that the objectives of the Interagency Task
Force for Irregular Warfare for the near term include disrupting
some specific elements of terror networks. “If you find
bad stuff in the wrong places, you have to call it like you see
it. We continue to see that and continue to watch it,” Holmes
said. “Our business is looking at this malign influence
and then figuring out what we can do to counter it … in
a holistic manner, not necessarily just force on force.”
He added that to counter, combat and, ultimately, defeat these
kinds of networked
activities, it will take more than just military force over
the long term.

Non-Governmental Agencies to Assist the Military's Irregular
Warfare

Holmes said the Interagency Task Force for Irregular Warfare,
which includes other federal partners and nongovernmental agencies,
will be able to better pursue certain elements that the military
is not authorize to pursue. "if there's a maligned actors
in the battlespace that are supporting [our enemy], killing coalition
forces, killing civilians and disrupting our efforts, we've got
to have a way to deal with those folks and get them out of the
battlespace." said General Holmes. He stressed that If these
elements are not considered an enemy combatant, there must be
a way to deal with them out of the battlespace. "We as a
nation need them out of the battlespace." he said. "There
are certain things that the Justice Department can do, coupled
with international policing through Interpol, that we can criminalize
and get that bad actor out of the battlespace. So from my point
of view, I really don't care how we get them out of there. Holmes
concluded.

Countering Adversarial Information Operations

Another aspect of the new task force's responsibility is the
monitoring and disruption of “adversarial information operations"
- or communications tactics addressing feeding local and foreign
journalists and triggering media reports with misleading information
about civilian casualties. Holmes said that both the Taliban in
Afghanistan and terrorists in Iraq have both adopted this type
of tactic. “[There is a] discrepancy in what we see in open-source
reporting with regard to civilian casualties and then what is
actually in our operational reporting,” Holmes said. “I
believe that the enemy uses this tactic to try to dissuade a civilian
populace from the things that are actually going on there.”
We're looking at countering some of the line networks -- and I
can't go much past that -- but we're -- part of the task force
is a very robust operational and intelligence fusion center, and
it is directing a primary effort toward disrupting some specific
elements of some terror networks.

The
interagency task force also is looking into the networks of the
Taliban and al-Qaida. Holmes said both terrorist organizations
have specialists who are savvy in manipulating the media. “There
is a malign actor there that, in my mind, would have the purpose
in an information operation campaign, and that is clearly a piece
of terrain for our adversary, that they are going to use this
to their advantage,” Holmes said. And that advantage can
be significant in the court of world opinion, the general noted,
because organizations with nefarious intentions will put out whatever
information suits their motives. Once information is put into
the dynamic information environment, misleading perceptions are
easily created. “Often, truth is no longer important; it’s
just out there,” he explained. “If I was my opponent,
and I wanted to do something against someone I knew was grounded
in truthful principles, … then I would use that to my advantage.”
“We’re bound to tell the truth, and in most cases
our adversary is not,” Holmes noted.

Another trend the interagency task force is watching and trying
to weigh out is the use of female suicide bombers. Though it’s
not a significant trend at this point, young or mentally disabled
women being used as suicide bombers is a departure in enemy tactics.
“It’s too early to say that this may be a sign of
desperation,” Holmes said. “We watched the recruitment
and flow of young males that have been recruited to be suicide
bombers. We have been trying to target that network to disrupt
that flow.”